April 30th

I learned a new feature on my camera today!

That's what happens when you spend an evening with two very knowledgeable amateur pro photographers, who also happen to own the same brand of camera!

I learned how to increase and decrease the brightness on my flash.

I am embarrassed to admit, when taking shots indoors, I was capturing more light inside by increasing the ISO.  Now anyone who knows their salt about photography is most likely cringing horribly about now *laugh*.  Yes, the noise was like a flock of tropical parrots screeching overhead... but at least I could see my subjects *grin*.

So, when having a play, I managed to create these different lighting effects, all with ISO 100.  100!!  That's so low!  It's so low, my camera doesn't even say '100'.  It says L0.3.  Which is an exponential thing... L0.3 is half of 200.  The next one down from that is L.07 which is ISO 50 (then L1.0, which is ISO 25).

Okay, so we've just done some more research into ISO numbers and the above is all wrong.  ISO 100 is actually L1.0.  ISO L0.3 is ISO 160 (and 0.7 is ISO 125).

So the shots taken here, were on L0.3 (just for record correctness).  We've just learned that ISO 200 is the base ISO setting for my camera.

Something else I learned last night - I LOVE MACRO PHOTOGRAPHY!  I remember my very first roll of film on my first camera (at the age of 9yrs), was trying to capture raindrops on roses (how very Sound of Music of me *laugh*).  I have also been guilty of taking 50 shots of a fly on my leg, or a slater in the grass, trying to capture some details.  And of course, getting thoroughly peeved that my camera won't get close enough.  

So I learned you can get special attachments for your camera, to hook up your lens round the other way, to capture shots of awesome detail.  And that's about the extent of my knowledge *laugh*.  But I'm excited to learn more!

I do love surrounding myself with people that know more than me, about fields I'm interested in *sigh*.  And oh, so grateful for their patience and generosity in sharing.

Thanks Rick!  Thanks Ben!